It has been recognized that the supporting of women's breasts to counter the forces of gravity and other externally applied forces which tend to draw and stretch the tissues of breasts and which subject breasts to undesirable impacting and reacting forces is most desirable and beneficial. Controlled support and contouring of women's breasts is also considered desirable for aesthetic purposes.
As a result of the above, the art of brassieres has become a highly developed and crowded art in which many different, special and unique brassiere stuctures have been provided to afford various special supporting and contouring characteristics and features.
As the art of brassieres has developed, a common and basic brassiere structure has developed, which basic structure is characterized by a lower body embracing girdle-like band of soft, flexible fabric which occurs about a wearer's torso adjacent the underside of the wearer's breasts, a pair of laterally spaced forwardly projecting rearwardly opening concavo convex breast receiving cups of soft, flexible fabric fixed to and projecting forwardly from the front portion of the band and in which the wearer's breasts are received and shoulder straps fixed to the tops of the cups and extending upwardly, rearwardly and downwardly over the wearer's shoulders and joined with the rear of the band.
The size, shape and details of construction of the several parts and/or portions of the above noted basic brassiere structure varies greatly.
The overwhelming majority of brassiere structure which can be distinguished from the above noted basic brassiere structure are rather few in number and are often little more than variations thereof.
The function of the above noted basic or common brassiere structure to contain and support a wearer's breasts is apparent and well-known to all of those who are familiar with the art of brassieres.
While the size and shape of women's torsos and shoulders and the size, shape and positioning of their breasts varies substantially infinitely, commercially available brassieres are produced in a relatively small number of different sizes and shapes, each of which in fact properly fits an extremely small number of women. However, the numbers of different sizes and shapes of brassieres that are commercially available is sufficient so that the great majority of women can obtain brassieres which fit them reasonably well, though such fit is most often a compromise.
Most women's breasts are somewhat pendulous and drop or hang to establish a lower rear fold or crease below the lower rear portions of their breasts and torsos. The desired function of a brassiere is to hold its wearer's breasts up and forward and thereby eliminate or reduce the lower rear folds of their breasts and to counter and/or reduce those forces and stresses which cause such folds.
A principal shortcoming of most common brassieres resides in the tendency for the front portions of the bands of the brassieres to creep upwardly into the folds behind the lower pendulous portions of the wearer's breasts and for the lower portions of the cups of the brassieres to be drawn up into said folds thereby. When the foregoing takes place, the displaced portions of the brassieres are not merely discomforting to the wearers but tend to concentrate forces directly onto and along the fold lines between the wearer's breasts and torsos and tend to cut and/or seriously adversely affect and weaken the tissue worked upon. When the above takes place, such brassieres fail to perform the important function of reducing certain adverse stresses within the wearer's breasts and in fact tend to increase those stresses.
In the prior art, the capability and effectiveness for a brassiere to support and hold the lower rear pendulous portion of a wearer's breasts up and forward and thereby eliminate or reduce the lower rear folds established thereby and to counter adverse effects thereof, brassieres have been constructed with various reinforcing wires and stays to stiffen and reinforce the bands of the brassieres so that they are less likely to work up into the noted lower folds of the breasts.
In other brassiere constructions provided by the prior art, the bands are established with upper forward portions which normally extend upwardly into and across said folds and overlie the lower rear portions of the cups to define pockets in which the pendulous portions of wearer's breasts are supported. In shuch a brassiere, the weight of the portions of the wearer's breasts in the pockets tend to hold the upper portion of the band down and thereby prevents it from cutting into the wearer.
In yet other forms of brassieres provided by the prior art, a series of laterally spaced elongate, forwardly projecting flexible stays are engaged in sleeves formed in the lower quadrant portion of the brassieres cups. Those stays have lower ends which are fixed to and stop against the bands of the brassieres and project forwardly and upwardly from the bands in splayed relationship to each other, throughout the lower rear portions of the wearer's breasts. The noted stays hold up and support the lower rear pendulous portions of the wearer's breasts and direct the forces of the weight of the breasts downwardly and rearwardly onto the bands, holding the bands down in their intended position. The stays also serve to prevent the cups from becoming distorted and out of desired set form and position.
This last noted form of brassieres has proven to be most desirable, comfortable and effective but due to the extra work and high cost of adding such stays to brassieres, such brassieres have proven to be excessively costly and have met with limited commercial success. Still further, to be most effective, the stays in such brassieres must be adjusted and set for each wearer which requires that such brassieres be custom made if best results are to be attained thereby.